Thursday, July 31, 2014

The convention kicked off while I was enroute to Boston with an opening address from Gov. Deval Patrick, but my participating in it starts today.

What I flew from the Lone Star State for is an #NABJ14 panel
discussion entitled Transforming Media: Fairly and Accurately ReportingOn Black Trans Americans.

I get to share the Hynes Convention Center stage with Kellee Terrell and Kenyon Farrow of this Tiq Milan moderated panel that kicks off at 2:15 PM EDT in Hynes 310. You can follow the discussion at #NABJTRANSFORM.

I'm beyond excited to make a personal dream come true thanks to GLAAD in attending the NABJ. Then again, that's been happening a lot for me this year. I'm also honored that I was invited to be part of this panel. I appreciate getting another chance to represent our community and be able to authoritatively talk about media coverage of Black transpeople with this group of distinguished journalists who share my ethnic background.

There will probably be some fangirl moments for me as I walk the halls of the Hynes Convention Center and run into some of my fave African descended journalists.

You can also follow the rest of today's scheduled conference action at #NABJ14

In our latest update of HERO news, Dave Welch of the Houston Area Pastors Haters Council is in this one.

Welch is one of our longtime inside Beltway 8 human rights oppressors who cut his repressive teeth with Ralph Reed and the Not So Christian Coalition. It's why he got the stank eye and call out from me during that HMS-TV debate a few weeks ago.

Seems like King Hater in a recent update to his faith based hatemongers has called for “imprecatory prayers” as the deadline to count the HERO repeal petitions deadline approaches.

So what's an imprecatory prayer? It's one in which you pray for vile and evil things to happen to your opponents and the destruction of institutions that you perceive as wicked.

And y'all wonder why I call Welch King Hater. Probably need to photoshop a '666' on his forehead in any future photos of him. Whether the misguided Mr Welch and his faith based bigots actually wants negative things to happen to all of us fighting to defend the ordinance is subject to debate, but as the late Maya Angelou stated, if somebody shows you who they are the first time, believe them.

Him parting his lips to ask for imprecatory prayers, being obsessively focused on the sex lives of gay people and obsessed about where we transfolks go potty are signs the man need Jesus and a good psychotherapist.

It's also dangerous when a so called religious leader makes such a dark, chilling and irresponsible call and proves his side and supporters are anything but Christian. History is also chock full of examples of disturbed people who heed the calls by hate preachers like Welch that subsequently do violently horrible things in the twisted belief they were carrying out God’s will.

Moving on to a more positive subject besides King Hater. . Let's talk about the HERO recall petitions.

With the August 4 deadline to verify the petitions rapidly approaching, the HERO petition.com website went online publishing the names of all the peeps who signed the repeal petitions which are a convoluted mess according to a recent OutSmart magazine article. .

The HERO haters claimed they gathered 50,000 names and certified 30,000, to which we called bull feces. Team HERO has subsequently had 80 trained people in a crowdsourcing effort to verify whether or not Max Miller and company were sellin' woof tickets back on July 3.

The question concerning whether or not the HERO haters gathered enough signatures to place it on the ballot (17,269) is also being asked by our local media.

The other interesting development happened at yesterday's city council meeting. Mike Craig and Noel Freeman testified at that meeting it appears that the HERO haters didn't turn in enough signatures.

We'll know for certain if that is true when City Secretary Anna Russell and City Attorney Dave Feldman deliver their reports after the August 4 verification deadline. If it's true, I'll do another happy dance and have a nice bottle of champagne chilling in the refrigerator that will be uncorked in celebration

We also have several meetings of interest coming up as the calendar page flips from July to August.

On July 31 will be the What Is Sisterhood one being held at the Montrose Center at 7 PM moderated by Dee Dee Watters. On August 2 will be another HERO Strategy Meeting at Legacy starting at 12 Noon. The Forward Times Town hall will happen on the critical August 4 deadline day also at 7 PM.

This trip will be one full of firsts for me. In addition to this being my first ever time to Boston after multiple ones to western Massachusetts, it's also the first time I'll get the opportunity to be in the NABJ convention house.

I have a panel discussion set for tomorrow, and I'm really looking forward to finally meeting Kellee Terrell after corresponding with her for several years on Facebook. Looking forward to being in the same space with the awesome Kenyon Farrow again for the first time since that OUT on the Hill panel we were participating on together and seeing Tiq Milan again.

I get a nonstop nearly 4 hour flight (3 hours and :50 minutes on the schedule) for this opening leg of this trip but wasn't so lucky on the return.

On my return leg home I'll have to roll through Chicago Midway before I get back to my beloved Texas soil.

Assuming the Southwest flight is on time, I'll get there in the afternoon. As always I'll be taking notes and doing a recap post concerning my latest travel excursion.

One of the highlights of my recent trip to take part in the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference was getting to finally meet and spend some quality time with Jazz and her amazing family.

At age 13 Jazz has piled up a list of accomplishments and accolades that many adults haven't accomplished in their lifetimes, and to top it off she is one bright, down to earth and beautiful soul on top of it.

Interesting to note that Jazz is now taking on another project in terms of dabbling in the world of video blogging.

Here are the initial video blogs of our fave trans teen for you to check out.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

A month from now the University of Houston Cougars will start their 2014 season on August 29 in their new football stadium with an 8 PM CDT kickoff against the UTSA Roadrunners.

Thanks to a lucrative $15 million ten year naming rights deal, it will be known as TDECU Stadium

The new TDECU stadium is a significant upgrade from the old Robertson Stadium which was demolished after their final game versus Tulane in 2012.

TDECU Stadium in addition to a 40,000 seat capacity expandable to 60,000, thanks to the new east-west orientation of it, will have spectacular views of
the nearby downtown Houston skyline from both the upper and lower seating bowls. It will also have premium seating
options, a state of the art video board, luxury boxes, Wi-Fi access, improved concessions and more. Open
and spacious concourses with views to the field and plentiful bathrooms were part of the TDECU Stadium design.

The lights and new S5-M turf field manufactured by UBU Sports has been installed. S5-M is a
slit-film turf blade with a sand/rubber combination for infill.

It's a low maintenance surface designed to host a multitude of
events, including but not limited to, high school football games,
concerts, band practice, specific UH intramural events and more. It has both dark and light green turf that alternates every five yards, a west end zone design that incorporates the Houston skyline into it and an east end zone that highlights the secondary Cougar athletics logo.

In addition, TDECU Stadium will be served by the Robertson Stadium/UH/TSU Station on the soon to be opened METRORail Purple Line.

Over the next four weeks construction crews will be feverishly working to complete any remaining interior and exterior landscaping work left on the $120 million stadium that is just four weeks from opening for business.

And will be interesting to discover what nickname the Coogs on campus will chrtisten it with.

You may remember me writing the story back in June about publicist Leigha Hagood, the 'Olivia Pope of the Hip-Hop World' who had her own world rocked recently when a disgruntled former employee tried to blackmail her.

She derailed the extortion attempt by coming out as trans, and after taking some time to let the controversy die down and let both of us honor previous commitments, I finally got the opportunity to sit down and have a long chat with Leigha Sunday night.

In addition to wishing her a happy belated birthday (it was July 24), in that two hour plus conversation she shared some details about her life, what it's like to be a publicist to various personal and corporate clients in Hollywood, and what the initial furor stirred up by the disgruntled ex-employee cost her.

While Leigha is happy she can go about her life from now on without having to worry about someone attempting to extort her as the cost of keeping her previously undisclosed girl like us status quiet, the initial cost of coming out as trans was steep.

How steep? It cost her three clients, $120,000 of lost business and having to spend time putting her formidable PR skills to work dealing with a PR crisis of her own.

She has come a long way from the precocious kid who grew up in Baltimore. She graduated from high school at age 15, earned her undergrad degree at Morgan State University and subsequently received a full ride scholarship to Princeton.

But like many of us on our gender journeys, she knew deep down she had to address the gender issue that had been building during her college years. Before heading west to Los Angeles in 2009 armed with her degrees, a one way bus ticket, $40 and a duffel bag began to transition.

After arriving in LA, she began to make the critical contacts that led to her PR career while working on the development of a show being prepared for pitch to MTV. She met Gabriel Cannon, the younger brother of Nick Cannon who became her first true friend in Hollywood. She also met A-list publicist Cassandra Grill-Neiman at that time, which was Leigha's introduction to being a publicist.

"Meeting Gabriel was a pivotal moment in my early Hollywood days," said Leigha. "I not only gained a true friend, but he helped me along with Cassandra avoid the Hollywood pitfalls."

During Grammy Weekend 2010 Hagood met A-list publicist Ashley Aristice-Caffey, another person who was instrumental in her development who also subsequently became her best friend in

Hagood's big break as a publicist came during the 2010 NBA All-Star Weekend in Dallas that led to the signing of her first NBA client. That initial NBA client would be her introduction into the world of celebrity fixing and crisis management. From that initial crisis management job came others leading to her current reputation as the 'Olivia Pope of the Hip-Hop World'.

In 2011 came the opportunity to take on members of the Glee cast as clients and led to her first corporate client courtesy of Keisha Knowles. "Keisha was the reason the LA Gay and Lesbian Center became my first corporate.client. She saw something special in me and took a chance on this poor social climbing child," she says with a laugh.

The Gay and Lesbian Center job led to other corporate clients with her star rising, she decided to consider striking out on her own and form her own company.

By 2012, with her A-list client and corporate portfolio expanding, the kid who arrived in Southern California with just $40 in her pocket had become a millionaire. But because of the confidential nature of the business, she couldn't claim credit for many of the things she'd done like getting negative stories spiked before they spread, nipping rumors and negative press before the narrative got entrenched, fixing personal crises and branding and developing new artists for major record labels.

At this point Hagood began to study the careers of Yvette Noel-Shure and Jenna Fleishman in preparation to start her own firm. "In a way, Yvette became a mentor to me. I watched how she handled Beyonce's career and began to realize that I had the ability and skills to take it to the next level," says Hagood.. "She was my role model in learning how to seamlessly put together all those skills I was already practicing and take them to the next level."

Her confidence bolstered by watching her mentor, Hagood formed her own firm which thanks to her work ethic and determination, became wildly successful. She's worked with 8 Grammy nominated artists. of which two took home Grammy Awards.

As you would suspect from someone nicknamed the 'Olivia Pope of the Hip Hop World', she has handled her own crisis and is moving forward personally and professionally.

While she's dealing with the legal ramifications of the breached contracts, Leigha's remaining A-list clients have had her back. The trans revelation has not changed their perception about Hagood or the quality of her work for them. Those clients see her being a girl like us as a non issue which is fine with Leigha.

She's gratified to have received critical support from her clients, her friends, people in the trans community and supportive allies, but she's itching to get back to just living her life and doing a job she absolutely loves.

Hagood has set a goal of attending a major trans oriented conference in the near future to meet other members of the community, but believes it's not necessary for her to be an activist.

"Those roles are being fulfilled quite well by you, Tona Brown, Janet Mock, Laverne Cox, Kylar Broadus and countless other people around the nation. Being trans is just a small part of the many complex layers that make up Leigha Hagood the person," she said. "The best way I can help the community is provide another possibility model as to what we can achieve if given the opportunity and do my job to the best of my ability."

Monday, July 28, 2014

As of yet no Houston bakers have been forced to bake swastika cakes against their will, we haven't had an epidemic of crossdressing predators flooding Houston bathrooms, and neither have the other parade of horribles and lies espoused by our faith based haters have come to pass.

And yeah HERO haters, if you don't like me calling you faith-based haters and human rights oppressors, stop acting like it.

And for you Houston area Black folks bristling because I'm calling your asses out about your unbelievably stupid and jaw dropping opposition to a human rights ordinance that protects you, if you lie down with lying right wing dogs, don't get mad when their fleas bite you and I call you out for associating with them.

Speaking of right wing liars, Dave Welch and his prevaricating preachers continue to claim that since the May 28 HERO passage, there have been four people caught in opposite gender bathrooms.

Yeah right. Show me the police reports.

The checking of HERO petitions continues, and another combined training and petition checking event was held last Saturday afternoon in which we had the pleasant surprise of our next governor, state Senator Wendy Davis visiting Resurrection MCC Church where it was held.

Sen..Davis was in town to do a block walking event organized by state Rep. Alma Allen and stopped by to thank the volunteers for their efforts.

Deadline to have the petitions checked to determine if there are enough signatures to place HERO on the ballot is August 3 and the clock is ticking. The visit of Sen. Davis also reminded us we are getting closer to our November 4 election day in the Lone Star State.

Dee Dee Watters will be facilitating a sisterhood discussion at the Montrose Center on July 31 from 7-9 PM CDT. The Transgendered Women of Color United for Change and the Legacy Community Health Services Positive Organizing Project cordially invites you to an important meeting that will include a panel of Trans women who will share about a wide range of topics including 'What is Sisterhood? Why Should Trans Women be Included?'

The Montrose Center is located at 401 Branard Street, Houston, TX 77006. Light refreshments will be served. All women are welcome. Contact Venita Ray for more information at 713-299-6123 or vray@legacycommunityhealth.org.

And Dee Dee, congratulations on capturing MSociety's Activist of the Year Award!. Well deserved.

As the Facebook page for the event stated, 'While beaches are traditionally not trans* affirming or body positive spaces, we will stake claim and join together in to be present, visible, and proud! We hope you can join us for this celebratory gathering to celebrate our trans* community and remember those we have lost'

And stake their claim they did.

It was not only a moment to build community pride and just have a fun event for the Chicago trans community to gather, it was also a memorial event for our fallen transsister Selma Diaz. Her body was found less than three miles from that lakefront spot in 2011.

The beach party organized by local trans* leaders Crispin Torres Carmona, Alexis Martinez, Jauna Peralta, Owen Daniel McCarter, Jen Richards and Joey Grant drew 450 attendees which included kids and allies. A great time was had by all in attendance and hopefully this is a idea that can be replicated in other parts of the country.

We need to have events in which we girls and guys like us aren't gathering for a convention, TDOR, a Trans 101 panel discussion or a community meeting We need more events in which we gather just to have fun, be visible and just enjoy each others company for a minute.

Thanks Chitown trans community for reminding us all of that point.

TransGriot Note: Group photo by Gretchen Rachel Blickensderfer of Windy City Times.

Well people, it's 100 days until the critical November 4 midterm election happens across the country, and the clock is ticking.

Control of the US House and the US Senate is on the line along with various state legislatures.

In the Lone Star State we have a US Senate race in addition to the nationally watched governors and lieutenant governor's races.

After 20 years of GOP misrule, I want nice things for my home state.
For that to happen, that means Wendy Davis needs to become my governor
and Leticia Van de Putte needs to become my lieutenant governor

Bottom line is for those of you in Texas, if you aren't registered to vote, you have 71 more days to do so before the deadline to be eligible to vote in this election.

If you don't live in Texas and aren't registered to vote, this is also your hint from Moni to get busy doing so before the registration deadline in your locale

And I expect the campaign commercials will start ramping up soon, but even more so after Labor Day.

I don't have to tell you what you'll need to do on November 4, but I will for the next 100 days be on your behinds gently reminding you of the stakes of this election, what it means for trans kind and the communities we intersect and interact with, and imploring that you get prepared to use your valuable time to exercise your constitutional rights to choose your elected officials.

And to end this, you can't get liberal-progressive policies from conservative leaning politicians who hate government.

Y'all can keep hatin' because I'm not going to stop talking about the subject until something is done to fix the problem.

Besides I'm not the only person in Black trans, bi and SGL World complaining about the issue. Other peeps who look like me inside and outside our community are talking about it, and you ignore this discussion at your political peril.

There was an interesting NewsOne discussion I was sent a link to by one of my regular readers about a recently compiled report by the Black Youth Project entitled Moving Beyond Marriage: What LGBT Youth Of Color Think About The LGBT Movement

A survey of 1500 youth between the ages 18-30 was recently conducted during June 2014. The BYP's main findings in the report are as follows:

More Black (80.2%) and Latino (74.9%) youth believe the marriage
equality movement has taken too much attention away from other important
LGBT issues compared to white youth (64.0%).

More Black youth (58.0%) believe that LGBT issues in communities of
color are not well-represented by mainstream LGBT organizations than
Latino (45.9%) and white youth (42.7%).

More than a third (35.0%) of Black youth reported that HIV/AIDS is
the single most important issue for LGBT organizations to address.
Latino youth reported that bullying (20.1%) is the most important issue,
while white youth (21.3%) reported that same-sex marriage is the most
important issue.

Young people of color are more supportive of policies that
would provide sensitivity training for police around transgender
issues (77.8% and 73.2%, respectively) and require health insurers to
provide coverage for transgender health issues (64.5% and 65.8%,
respectively) than white youth (66.2% and 56.3%, respectively).

The NewsOne discussion about it facilitated by Roland S. Martin featured Jasmyne Cannick, Cleo Manago, and Terrance Laney of BlackYouth Project

This survey documents that Black and Latino LGBT youth have a very different perspective about what issues this LGBT movement should be focusing on.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

The iconic NBC Sunday morning interview show Meet The Press under current host David Gregory has slid to a distant third in recent ratings for the Sunday morning news talk shows, and rumors are flying amongst the chatterrati that Gregory is about to get canned for it.

The rumored replacements for Gregory should this turn out to be true are Joe Scarborough and Chuck Todd.
Time for me to go into Maya Wilkes mode at the thought of either of them in that iconic Meet The Press chair.

If NBC thought their ratings are bad now with Gregory, if they make that colossal programming mistake, wait until they tank still further with either of those two in the Meet the Press anchor chair.

Instead of putting another conservative leaning white male in the chair, I submit NBC needs to do something bold since they are bringing up the ratings rear anyway.

Those Sunday morning talk shows are highly influential programs and set the tone for political inside the beltway discussions and Capitol Hill debates. Those shows have been dominated for far too long by white male 50+ conservative Republicans, and it's past time to clear the stagnant vanillacentric privileged air and add the thoughts and opinions of other people who live in this diverse country of ours.

It's past time to put a journalist of color or a female one in that chair to break up the Washington Conservative Boys Club and bring perspectives and questions into these discussions that white male journalists because of their privilege and other societal blind spots wouldn't think to ask. .

Rachel Maddow seems to be the person that chattering class peeps are frequently thinking and talking about as a possible candidate to replace Gregory in that chair should NBC execs pull the trigger and fire him.

I have another suggestion for a possible replacement that people are ignoring: Gwen Ifill.

Gwen Ifill is a longtime journalist and political analyst who moderates and is the managing editor ofWashington Weekon PBS. She a Simmons College grad who has worked for NBC, the Washington Post and the New York Times. She is the co-anchor with Judy Woodruff of the PBS NewsHour. She has also been the moderator of the 2004 and 2008 Vice Presidential debates.and has appeared on Meet The Press herself.

So with that pedigree, why hasn't she been suggested to take over the hosting duties for Meet The Press?

Do I have to state the obvious here?

As for the two rumored leading candidates to take over the Meet The Press spot, neither Chuck Todd or Joe Scarborough moderated TWO Vice presidential debates as Ifill has. Neither have worked for the Washington Post (1984-91), the New York Times (1991-94) and NBC (94-99) as Ifill has in addition to hosting two PBS news shows?

And if NBC did name Ifill, it's a win-win on multiple levels. They get to make history, take a bold step toward diversifying one of the whitest hours of television, bring one of their former journalists back, and are guaranteed to get a ratings bump because liberal-progressive peeps like me who got tired of Gregory and the conservative white men he panders to will come back to the show, especially if Ifill is hosting it.

Ifill hosting it will also draw new non-white viewers who turn past Meet the Press to watch the more diverse Melissa Harris- Perry show on MSNBC

Saturday, July 26, 2014

One of my favorite events to attend since I'm moved back home and haven't missed is the Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit.

The second TTNSsummit at Rice University was the first in state and in town event I attended mere weeks after my May 2010 return to Houston, and I haven't missed one since.

This 6th annual edition of the TTNS is going to be a historic and interesting one because for the first time it ventures out of its Houston area backyard and hits the Lone Star roads as founder Josephine Tittsworth intended it to do.

The TTNS is a two day event that invites interested parties in higher education and interested advocates to discuss and come up with strategies and best practices in regards to codifying inclusion of "gender identity and expression" into institutional policy.

The TTNS summit serves as a way to facilitate that policy and procedural inclusion. It does so via discussion of divergent and respective strategies in regard to overcoming the inevitable barriers that always arise when proposing policies that will expand education opportunities for transgender students and the human rights for all.

The 2014 edition of the TTNS will take place at the LBJ Student Center on the campus of Texas State University August 8-9.

Our keynote speakers for this year will be Dr. Gage E. Paine, Vice President for Student Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin and Daniel Williams, Field Organizer and Legislative Specialist for Equality Texas.

In addition to the keynotes, the TTNS will have two days worth of seminars covering various topics, chances to network with other people doing this work and hopefully the TTNS chocolate break.

For the second straight year yours truly will be doing more than just chronicling the TTNS happenings, I'll also be teaching a seminar.

What subject? You'll have to roll to San Marcos and join us to find out.

There's been a meme going around on Facebook in which people are reminiscing about their hometowns triggered by the words 'I'm so (your city here) I remember'

Being the proud native Houstonian I am along with some of my other Houston Facebook friends, our personal and group ones got long quite quickly as people chimed in with their personal memories of our beloved hometown. It inspired me to write a post about it.

I'm so Houston, I remember when my hometown had 1 million less people and its tallest building for a minute was One Shell Plaza at a measly 50 stories before the building boom of the early 80's reshaped Houston's skyline forever. .

I'm so Houston, I remember when Astroworld opened in 1968. I spent many a happy summer there. I was thoroughly pissed off when it closed in 2005 due to Six Flags management incompetence.

I'm so Houston, I remember when Palm Center was a real mall with Montgomery Ward on one end, JC Penney on the other and thriving shops in between. I also shopped at the old Gulfgate, Meyerland and Sharpstown Malls and local chain Weiner's.

I'm so Houston, I remember going to movies at the Shamrock 8, the Almeda 8, The Greenway 6, the Gulfgate 4, the Majestic Metro Downtown and OST locations and the McLendon Triple and Chocolate Bayou drive in's.

I'm so Houston, I can remember when low income TBLG peeps could actually afford to live in the Montrose gayborhood. I remember going to Studio 13, Chances, QT's, EJ's, Cousins, and when they closed for the evening, to Charlie's for something to eat..

I'm so Houston, I remember when the Shamrock Hilton dominated the Med Center area skyline and going to a few events in its ballrooms.

I'm so Houston, when somebody says 'inside the Loop', I'm thinking the Loop 610 freeway that encircles the city. I know what a feeder road is, how to say Kuykendahl, Humble is pronounced with a silent 'H', and I-45 has been under construction since I was born..

I'm so Houston, I grew up watching Cadet Don in the morning, Kitirik in the afternoon and Marrrrrvin Zindler, Eyyyyewitness News.

I'm so Houston, I got to see Barbara Jordan and Mickey Leland represent our city in Austin and Washington DC. My first mayoral election I was able to participate in was the one in which Kathy Whitmire became our first female mayor. I cast another history making vote for Lee Brown in 1997 as our first African-American mayor.

I'm so Houston. I root for every Houston based sports team at the high school, college and professional level, celebrate their titles and mourn their losses. And no, do not ever mention a certain traitorous NFL football team in my presence or a certain 1983 NCAA Final Four championship game..
.

I'm so Houston, the first thing I did when I moved back home was eat at Frenchy's and destroy some Shipley's Donuts later in the week. And yes, was delighted to discover a Timmy Chan's up the street from my house.

I'm so Houston, I remember when the western edge of the city was Spring Branch, FM 1960 was the northern edge of it, and the Woodlands actually had trees.

I'm so Houston, it
ain't barbecue unless it's marinated, cooked over a pit for several
hours, smoked over some kind of wood (mesquite, hickory, apple or pecan), has
brisket available and the sauce is on the side.

Friday, July 25, 2014

It was not a great 2013 NFL for me or my fave NFL team.. year. I had the worst year ever of NFL prognostication after coming into it as the defending champion against newbie Eli and Mike Watts.

Eli walked away with the 2013 prognostication title as I brought up the rear thanks largely to the Texans collapse..

After starting out 2-0, they went 0-14 the rest of the way. That led to longtime coach Gary Kubiak's firing after an embarrassing season sweep by Jacksonville and interim coach and defensive coordinator Wade Phillips and the rest of the coaching staff getting sacked after the season. in favor of Bill O' Brien.

The 2-14 trainwreck of a season resulted in the Texans landing the number one draft pick which they used to select South Carolina DE Jadeveon Clowney.

So another NFL season is rapidly approaching as the start of NFL training camps today around the country including here in H-town signals. I'm also planning to redeem myself in this year's NFL prognostication contest and will have more details about who I'll be picking games against as we get closer to NFL Opening Weekend September 4-7.

But enough jibber-jabber about football. It's Friday, and time for me to select our first round draft choices for our weekly TransGriot Shut Up Fool Awards. It's time to determine who needs to be sacked for their off the charts hypocrisy, willful ignorance and mind numbing stupidity.

So let's get to it

Honorable mention number one is a group award for the NFL. You suspend Joshua Cribbs for a year for smoking weed, but Ray Rice knocking out his girlfriend turned wife only merits a two game suspension?

WTF?

Honorable mention number two is Governor Goodhair, AKA Rick Perry, (R-TX). His pandering on the border is going to cost Texas taxpayers a few million dollar and not going to do anything to solve the humanitarian crisis of kids streaming north from Central America to escape narcogang violence our drug habits and lax gun laws unleashed.

Honorable mention number three is Bert Farias, who laughably said that gay people are possessed by fart demons. Hmm sounds like somebody had writer's block when they were compiling a sermon and was watching too much of the movie Dogma that night.

Honorable mention number five goes to Bryan Fischer, who engaged in more Obama Derangement Syndrome antics by stating that President Obama was going to use the Malaysian Airlines crash in Ukraine to advanmce his radical homosexual agenda?

Honorable mention number six goes to Teabagger Ted Cruz. The junior senator from Alberta parted his lips to say something else stupid by claiming the prudent FAA ban on US carriers flying into David Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv after Hamas rockets landed a mile from it was an 'economic boycott against Israel.

You are an embarrassment to the once proud legacy of Texas congressional and senatorial leaders

Honorable mention number seven is former NFL coach and analyst Tony Dungy, who opened his mouth and inserted cleats into it by hypocritically and homophobically stating he wouldn't have taken Michael Sam in the NFL draft because it would have been a 'distraction', then reversed himself when the condemnation for his comments started raining down on him.

Guess you forgot that you were a 'distraction' when you were hired by the Tampa Bay Bucs as their head coach and the year you won the 'Soul Bowl' against Chicago

Honorable mention number eight is Andrea James for once again selling out the trans community and trying to make the dead argument on behalf of gay males in a Queerty post about the t-word not being a slur when a majority of the community, and especially trans women of color have repeatedly said it is.

This week's SUF winner (or loser, take your pick) is Ted Nugent. After two Native American tribes in Washington state and Idaho cancelled gigs for him at their casinos over his racist remarks, support of Daniel Snyder in keeping the offensive nickname of the Washington NFL Franchise and disrespecting Native American culture, Ted fired back by unleashing a diatribe against 'unclean vermin'.

Yeah, right he who didn't bathe for 30 days and crapped his pants so he could dodge getting drafted to fight in Vietnam

Ted Nugent, have several sections of seats at Ford Field and shut the hell up, fool!
.

So it will be interesting to see in 2012 how Andrej Pejic tops this and
what other interesting developments happen in Pejic's life gender wise..--TransGriot, January 15, 2012, Andrej Pejic Does Bra Ad.

There has been an interesting development and major change in androgyne supermodel Andreja Pejic's life recently.

Nope, that's not a typo. As many of us in Trans World had an inkling would probably happen after the Bosnian born Aussie first burst into the fashion world's consciousness by doing androgynous fabulousness while ripping the worlds fashion runways, the 22 year old Pejic on Wednesday came out as trans and revealed she has undergone SRS.

Pejic also revealed she recently changed her name in addition to releasing a statement that from now on she would only exclusively model women's clothes. She also noted in the statement she is receiving support from her modeling agency, friends and family.

Andreja also had this to say in a message on her Facebook page directed at trans youth.

"I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for the love and
support throughout the years. You've all helped me through this journey
and I have learned a lot and really come into my own and the response to
today’s announcement truly overwhelmed me and reminds me of why I chose
to do this publicly.

I think we all evolve as we get older and
that's normal but I like to think that my recent transition hasn't made
me into a different individual. Same person, no difference at all just a different sex

I hope you can all understand that.

I would also like to to reach out to all young gender non-conforming
youth out there: I know it's hard, I've been there, but remember it’s
your right to be accepted as what you identify with---you deserve the
same respect as any other human being on this planet. As a transgender
woman I hope to show that after transition (a life-saving process) one
can be happy and successful in their new chapter without having to
alienate their past. Most importantly differences should not equal
divisions, let's all stand together in union." ‪#‎betruebeyou‬

***

Welcome to the trans fam Andreja!

Glad you're a girl like us and you are officially joining the long and increasingly stylish line of trans models. Fashion Week should be quite interesting in September.

I spent an interesting Thursday night over at Resurrection MCC with Dee Dee Watters and 25 leaders leaders in the Houston African-American trans bi and SGL community.

We spent two hours having a much needed tell it like it T-I-S is discussion about issues in our community that needed our attention.

We were hit with the sobering news that many of the petitions to repeal the HERO were signed by people in Districts B, D and who lived in Rep Sheila Jackson-Lee's congressional district.

Never mind the fact the push to pass the HERO started because a straight Black female judge was denied entrance to a Washington Ave club along with members of the Houston Dynamo MLS team in a separate incident.

We also talked about the demonization of the trans community that even elements of the Houston Black SGL community are complicit in engaging in, the lack of engagement on our end with the non-gay Black community and our legacy orgs, the invisibility of our Houston Black TBLG community and the complicity of the white Houston LGBT community in that invisibility.

We spent that two hours doing an overview of the HERO, its history, who it covers, and where to find accurate information about it. We also discussed some problems in our own ranks. Strategies to deal with the diagnosed problems short and long term were envisioned. The leaders in attendance also came up with suggestion and concrete steps to engage our SGL, bi and trans ranks to get more involved in ours and the African-American community and engaging the local Houston media to deal with the Black LGBT invisibility issue.

Much of what we discussed is in the 'Houston Black GLBT Revolution Will Not Be Televised' territory, but you will see action occurring over the remainder of the year and into 2015 to solve the identified problems.

As for other HERO news, more events to do training and petition checking are on the agenda. A HERO petition training and work session will happen at Resurrection MCC tomorrow starting at 1 PM. If you've got a spare two hours, come on down to 2025 W.11th St and the Gathering Place. The verification process training is quick and easy, and once you're trained, you can get busy verifying the petitions because the deadline to do so is August 3.

Please bring a laptop (or tablet if you are comfortable with that). Resurrection will also provide a limited number of laptops for use and snacks.

There will also be a sisterhood discussion on July 31 at the Montrose Center designed to help cis and trans women break down barriers that inhibit sisterhood amongst each other. More details coming soon in this TransGriot space.

TransGriot Note: Another guest post from Fallon Fox. She had a lot to say about the US Conference of Catholic Bishops letting their transphobia flow while hating on President Obama's recent TBLG rights protective executive orders.

"The executive order prohibits “gender identity” discrimination, a prohibition that is previously unknown at the federal level, and that is predicated on the false idea that “gender” is nothing more than a social construct or psychological reality that can be chosen at variance from one’s biological sex.".

Thus saith the willfully ignorant (A.K.A. - stupid as hell ) United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. What they are saying is that they are butt hurt over their slipping grip on discrimination of transgender people.

"In the name of forbidding discrimination, this order implements discrimination.", they say. I could have sworn that we have a separation of church and state. A simple Wikipedia search, or fifth grade text book, could easily inform the USCCB of the contents of the US Constitution.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances. What's messed up is that they willfully recognize that what they want is discrimination.

The USCCB says, "The executive order prohibits “gender identity” discrimination, a prohibition that is previously unknown at the federal level..." and, "With the stroke of a pen, it lends the economic power of the federal government to a deeply flawed understanding of human sexuality, to which faithful Catholics and many other people of faith will not assent. As a result, the order will exclude federal contractors precisely on the basis of their religious beliefs."

So, basically what they are saying is that they recognize their particular brand of Catholicism is discriminatory against a certain minority group. They admit that and their religion demands that discrimination.

I am in no way religious. But, if I were to feel froggy enough to dabble in a belief system that ignores the peer reviewed evidence of scientist and doctors, because I felt that I needed to hold on to something for whatever reason, I certainly wouldn't pick the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops brand of Catholicism. Because, that would be an asshole-ish thing to do to other human beings, no? Subscribe to a religious view that seeks to implement, or keep in place, hateful governmental policies in order to bolster the belief system that makes me comfortable as a navigate my way in this world? All of these restraints on fellow humans lives in minority groups, and supposed self defined 'government protections' for myself, when I would have absolutely positively not one single solitary shed of evidence for the religion I am basing all of this discrimination on.

It only took a second for the words "What kind of insanity is this?" to fly out of my mouth and for my fist to slam my desk when I read the USCCB website today. See, there is clear scientific peer reviewed evidence that transgender women have differences in their brains than cisgender males. That is a fact. One can argue if it is a matter of nature, nurture, or a combination of the two before toddler age or such that leads to the neurological configuration of transgender women's brains. But, what they have found is that transgender women's neurology is different. There is no denying that even for the USCCB. The scientific and medical communities know this and the government knows this.

On the flip side, when science attempts to find evidence for a god, neither the scientific, medical, or governmental entities can find absolutely no concrete evidence that points to the god of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, or any other god that has been written into religious text. And if any scientist, doctor, or politician were to ever find such evidence, they would be the most popular person on planet Earth. The Vatican would love to see such hard evidence of their claims pushed to the forefront. It would be a worldwide game changer. It would most certainly cause enough of a stir to cover up the child molestation problem that is rampant within their institution. Yet, silence abounds in the halls of hard scientific evidence when questions of God are concerned.

Now, I'm not here to preach to you that there is or is not a god. That's just not my thing. I personally have no religious belief. But, as long as a religion doesn't try to harm anyone, or hinder someone else's life, it's not really an issue for me. I'll say again for those who are sensitive about the issue of religion. As long as religion doesn't seek to put roadblocks in the way of my well being and freedoms that all humans should have, then I'm pretty much live and let live in that regards. That's pretty much the mindset of most non believers. But, let's think about what's going on here in this particular situation with the USCCB and transgender rights. Because this is where a conflict can and does arise constantly when some (but not all) religions try to impose their belief system on others lives.

It's well known within medicine and science that transgender women are women in their brains regardless of surgeries or hormone replacement therapy. There is clear evidence of this fact. On the flip side, there is zero scientific evidence of the god of the USCCB. Yet, we don't hear transgender atheist complaining about sharing restrooms with members of the USCCB. We don't even hear transgender Catholics complaining about sharing restrooms with members of the USCCB. As a matter of fact, I haven't heard of any group complaining or suggesting that members of the USCCB be segregated from male restrooms. One would think that would be an issue that someone should bring up. Given the documented rapes by Catholic priests time and time again on young boys, everyone knows that Catholics have a problem in this area. Yet, transgender folks, and most rational people, realize that Catholic rape tends to happen often, you can't paint one entire group of people with one broad brush and be hyper paranoid about sharing spaces like restrooms with them.

Let's flip that coin again. You will rarely, if ever, find transgender women molesting children or raping anybody in a restroom. Not that it could not happen. There are crazies in every group I am sure. But, it's just not a reoccurring thing, and it is not pervasive by any stretch of the imagination. I've never heard of a transgender person in a restroom raping anyone ever in my life. You don't hear about repeated cases of rapes dished out by transgender women. And transgender women have been using women's restrooms since restrooms were invented. No, it's actually the opposite way round. You actually find repeated cases of transgender women raped by the hands of others. That has also been happening since the invention of the restroom.

One thing for certain is this. If transgender women, or any other group were to even hint at the possibly, if they were even to whisper the idea that Catholics should be banned from restrooms because - well, you know - some Catholics are known for raping kids, Catholics would have a fit. They would no doubt scream, "This is hateful discrimination! Not all Catholics rape kids!" from the mountain tops. And they would have good reason to, as that would certainly be hateful discrimination based on the evil deeds of a few.

What would happen if transgender women who were not Catholic said this? "Prohibiting 'religious discrimination', a prohibition that should be known at the federal level, and that is predicated on the false idea that the "USCCG's god" is a real being that interacts with humans on earth - is wrong. We need to have religious discrimination! Their lifestyle and desires conflict with our own. We actually feel quite uncomfortable sharing restrooms with Catholics. So, we would like 'religious discrimination' implemented in the case of Catholic restroom usage. We don't mind if Catholics use the restroom of course. We know they need to go potty when they need to. We just don't want them doing it anywhere near us. We propose a restroom separated from non-Catholics for those special Catholic needs. The restrooms we have in mind are clearly marked with a lower cased "t" so that they will be easily recognizable by Catholic restroom usage. Look how merciful we are! We even propose a place for Catholics to go number one and two! Just keep them far far way from us please."

The above scenario would never happen. Every secularly minded non believer that I know of has no problem simply sharing a restroom with someone of a different belief system as themselves, or disagrees with them on an issue. It's just not a thing that is rampant among rational empathetic humans. If a non-believer were to hold such a hateful bigoted position and paint every single believer with such a broad brush they would be wrong. And this progressive atheist transgender lesbian would go to task in fighting them on that harmful suggestion. I don't have to though, because as I said, it doesn't happen. Yet, the USCCB, and some other far right religious institutions are drunk with unnecessary irrational fears of their fellow humans.

Fortunately, there are more empathetic and progressive Catholics and Christians on this planet that I can respect. And even though we may disagree on the concept of a divine creator, we realize that we can judge each individual on an individual basis. We don't have to unnecessarily fear or judge whole minority groups, or each other for the acts of a few individuals. We can respect each other, live in peace, and be friends actually.

Fortunately, the younger generation is more understanding than their elders and won't stand for their elders insensitivity in the long run and most certainly will throw the bums out in the future. And that my friends gives me much hope for humanity.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

You and your misguided friends are hypocritically siding with the same conservative oppressors that oppose the African-American community on human rights issues of importance to us such as voting rights and workplace fairness, and it's a disgusting spectacle to witness.
--TransGriot, May 18, 2014, Houston Black Pastors, Sick Of You Denying Our Humanity

As my readers already know, I have no problem telling it like it T-I-S is and calling out friend, foe or frenemy when it's warranted.

Since I unleashed a post taking the Houston LGBT community to task for its failure to work intersectionally, it's time to also call out the ways in which the Houston African-American community has also failed to do the same with the local LGBT community instead of pointing fingers and smugly thinking their feces is malodorous.

There is a perception in elements of the white LGBT community that Black people are 'uniquely homophobic'. Yeah, I know it's bull feces and we in Black LGBT world are constantly doing battle with that meme when it comes up in conversation with our white GLBT brothers and sisters.

But that perception is cosigned when you have loud and wrong ministers like Max Miller and company and others nationally in the community like Bishop Eddie Long twisting Scriptures trying to mask their homophobia and participating in anti-gay rallies.

It's also an infuriating head scratcher to us in LGBT World that elements of the African-American community would partner with the same white Texas GOP conservatives like Jared Woodfill who have oppressed and hated on our community for decades in order to scuttle a mutually beneficial Houston Equal Rights Ordinance..

Dave Welch, another one of those white conservative haters, is the executive director of the far-right Houston Area Pastors Council and one of our community's long time enemies. He was the founding Executive Director of the Christian Coalition of Washington, the National Field Director of Christian Coalition, the Executive Director of Vision America and chickened out of a debate with Cristan Williams, after she handed him his bigoted behind on FOX 26 back in 2010.

He's also the local affiliate for NOM, who has been since 2009 engaged in a cynical campaign to drive a wedge between the African-American and BTLG communities.

“The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks—two key Democratic constituencies. Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage, develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots…”

***

“These documents expose NOM for what it really is—a hate group determined to use African American faith leaders as pawns to push their damaging agenda and as mouthpieces to amplify that hatred,” said Sharon Lettman-Hicks, National Black Justice Coalition Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer at the time.

Max Miller and the Baptist Ministers Association of Houston and Vicinity are making King Hater Dave Welch smile. He gets to sit back, plug y'all into that NOM game plan and let Max Miller and the rest of you be the useful spokesfools in the divide and conquer game they're running as he and his white conservatives laugh and use y'all as human shields to hide behind and claim they have a 'diverse coalition' to oppose the HERO.

Meanwhile you're pissing us SGL peeps off by being in bed with one of our major longtime enemies, and you wonder why the Houston LGBT community coolly sits on the sidelines and their wallets for issues you deem important.

Speaking of crap, me and my fellow Houston trans people are more than upset about being demonized in this anti-HERO campaign and y'all falling for the bathroom predator okey-doke.

And FYI, HISD has has a non-discrimination policy that includes gender identity since 2011 with none of the parade of horribles Max and Dave have been peddling. As a matter of fact, there have been no cases of trans predators attacking cis women in bathrooms, but we sure do have examples, including here in Houston on the University of Houston-Downtown campus, of trans women being attacked and harassed by cis women in the bathroom. The UHD attack led to the passage of a policy that created designated gender neutral bathrooms in UHD buildings.

FYI, contrary to the 'gay affluence' fiction, while some peeps in the community are doing well, there are others who have been priced out of Montrose. There are others for who living in the gayborhood will be a never fulfilled pipe dream because they are trying to get by on below poverty level wages of $10,000 a year. Many of the folks who are trying to live on that $10K a year share your ethnic heritage.

As I've pointed out more than a few times on this blog, Black LGBT issues are also Black community issues. None of us gave up our Black cards because we began to live our SGL truth or transitioned. Like myself, many of us also have deep roots in the Houston African-American community and are just as proud of our Black heritage as we are of being unapologetically LGBT people.

So stop trying to pretend like we aren't Black because we are also part of the TBLG community, because our haters, elements of our white LGBT counterparts and the world sure don't let us forget we're Black.

Some of us are dues paying members of the NAACP, the Divine Nine frats and sororities, faithful tithing members of various churches, and support other organizations in this community. It is disingenuous and angering to us when you try to play that game of SGL, bi and trans peeps not being "Black enough' for this community when what ails the Black community also ails us, and we have an extra layer of oppression heaped upon our Black bodies because of our BTLG status.

And we in LGBT world are not liking the cricket chirping silence or flip-flopping of legislators our endorsements, votes and dollars support.

Neither do we appreciate Black community orgs when we need you to come out of the closet and be fierce advocates for our policy concerns being silent or being consistently inconsistent about your LGBT community support. .

So yes, it's past time for the Houston Black community to be BETTER allies to the LGBT community

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About The TransGriot

Monica Roberts, AKA the TransGriot (Gree-oh) is a native Houstonian, GLAAD award nominated blogger, writer, and award winning trans human rights advocate. She's the founding editor of TransGriot, and her writing has appeared at the Bilerico Project, Ebony.com, The Huffington Post and the Advocate.
She works to foster understanding and acceptance of trans people inside and outside communities of color and was recently honored with the Virginia Prince Transgender Pioneer Award

TransGriot Blog Mission Statement

The TransGriot blog's mission is to become the griot of our community. I will introduce you to and talk about your African descended trans brothers and trans sisters across the Diaspora, reclaim and document our chocolate flavored trans history, speak truth to power, comment on the things that impact our trans community from an Afrocentric perspective and enlighten you about the general things that go on around me and in the communities that I am a member of.

--Mission Statement compiled January 2, 2011

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